A so-called mystic who drew many of pilgrims to a community near Rome by claiming that a statue of the Virgin Mary wept bloody tears has been sent to trial for suspected fraud.
Central Charges and Particulars
The accused woman, who also stated the statue was sending messages to her, will be tried along with her spouse, Gianni Cardia, in the spring the coming year.
They are accused of staging false visions of the Virgin Mary and issuing untrue forecasts of catastrophes to solicit donations from their religious followers.
Cardia brought hundreds of individuals monthly to Trevignano Romano, a lakeside town near Rome, to worship before the figure, which had been positioned in a temporary sanctuary on a elevation. Over a number of years, the supposed scheme collected €365,000 in offerings from the pilgrims, who trusted their money would go towards establishing a facility for ill children.
Additional Claims
Cardia is also accused of issuing false prophecies, including claiming the figure alerted her that the devil was concocting disasters, for example an tremor that would destroy Rome and the seizure of the Catholic church by political ideology.
Legal authorities in the port city of Civitavecchia opened an inquiry in 2023 after a private investigator asserted the substance on the figure came from a animal. Cardia was later labeled a fraud by the Catholic church, which subsequently tightened its rules on paranormal phenomena as part of a crackdown on scams and deceptions.
“Despite the irony, she finds comfort, viewing this as a chance to clarify the facts openly and conclusively stop all rumors, confusion, and disputes,” said her legal representative, the attorney.
Background and Connected Events
The accused, who has a prior conviction for financial crime, bought the statue in 2016 at a Catholic pilgrimage site in Međugorje.
News of the case came as the Vatican’s religious authority stated that alleged visions of Jesus in the European town of Dozulé in the 1970s were not of supernatural origin. Jesus was said to have appeared to a woman 49 times asking that a “magnificent crucifix” that would guarantee the purification of sin be constructed in the town. The office said that the alleged apparitions were “considered, definitively, as not supernatural in origin”.
Pope Leo approved a decree last week instructing Catholics not to call Mary as the “co-redeemer”, that is to say that she helped her son Jesus save the world from sin. His action was intended to combat the spread of an extreme veneration of the Madonna, often on online platforms, that has emboldened claims of visions, weeping figures, and so-called prophets.
The former Pope Francis warned in 2023 that apparitions of Mary “do not always occur”.
